About

Cellist Elena Ariza is rapidly establishing herself as one of today’s most creative, cutting-edge and community-driven cellists.

Already a highly-decorated performer, Elena won first prize at the 2022 Gustav Mahler Prize Cello Competition and the 2022 Philharmonic Society of Arlington Young Artist Competition, and was a finalist in both the 2021 and 2019 Juilliard Concerto Competition, as well as the 2019 Mondavi Young Artists Competition. She has performed with luminaries such as Itzhak Perlman, Vivian Weilerstein, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Christopher O’Riley.

Elena has performed on NPR’s national radio show From the Top, and was a featured cellist in Yo-Yo Ma’s groundbreaking Music Art Life project. She is fiercely committed to community activism, having organized fundraiser events for the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami, the 2021 Haitian earthquake, and most recently, for those affected by the Russian war in Ukraine.

An incoming doctoral student at The Juilliard School, Elena is currently studying under the tutelage of Astrid Schween and Joel Krosnick. She previously received an Artist Diploma from Juilliard and attended the Columbia-Juilliard Exchange Program, majoring in computer science. She remains active as a coder in her free time.